quilter2090

A grocery store in my area produce a weekly trader. If something like that is available where you live, place an ad for unwanted fabric. Strange as it may seem to those of us who love to sew, not everybody does. Asking for free fabric you might be surprised at what you may receive. Quilting started out as a way for women to keep their families warm during cold winter's nights. They were not so fussy about they had to work with, if it could be quilted it was used to make quilts.I sometimes think that some people forget the origins of quilting, making do with what they had. Now there are people who put down a person who buys their fabric at Joann's or Wal-Mart. Their opinion is that Joann's and Wal-Mart fabric's are not good enough. Nonsense! My Grandmother would have LOVED to have the selection of fabrics available at stores now. Also, check out the clearance section of Fabric.com. I bought some lovely Michael Miller fabric for under $2.00 a yard! It's beautiful and cheap. You do have to put some time in at the computer and local traders and newspaper's. You might be pleasantly surprised. Good Luck!

sniktasemaj

Does your mother have any old clothing or scraps from sewing dresses, etc.? It would be nice to put fabric in the quilt that has a sentimental value. Grandkids outgrown clothes, old tablecloths she never uses anymore. Stuff she may have stored that she will never use, such as aprons, curtains, etc.

justflyingin

I wanted to add that it all depends on the sheets as well. A really tightly woven sheet will be hard for your needle to pierce and you have a lot of skipping (ask me how I know). But you can try. Sometimes sheets can be super nice. You'll have to experiment a bit to see what works for you.

drgranny

I buy a lot of fabric at resale shops, ie. Savers, Goodwill, Lighthouse for the Blind, Salvation Army, DAV. Good prices and you would be surprised at the nice fabrics you can find and sometimes good size yardage for just a few bucks.

amelia0607

I just got 2 huge sacks of fabric (some large pieces) from a woman on facebook. You can look for facebook flea markets, thrift stores, or my other closet type pages and post on there what you want. I also look for garage sales more in the country. Also have a lead on two large tubs of fabric from a woman at a garage sale - she doesn't quilt any longer and is willing to give it to me if I will just come get it out of her attic.

BellaBoo

Look up all the guilds in your area. Every guild should have a Facebook page or website these days. Visit the guild on the day of a sale tale or white elephant sale and you can buy bags of fabric for a few dollars.

charity-crafter

Check if your area has a freecycle. http://www.freecycle.org/ Church rummage sales at the end of the sale will sometimes have $2 a bag, what ever you can stuff in the bag.

Marysewfun

I am glad for this article, too - sometimes when I am looking at something and wondering if it would work - I remind myself of the ladies in old time settlers type carriages or wagons, etc that didn't have a shop to stop and get something. :-) Then the next step of course is practicality for the fabric I am looking at. :-)

Marysewfun

Feathers-N-Fur

If you live near a city big enough to have multiples of the same thrift store, such as 3 Goodwills, you can ask if they route the craft items to one store. Here, all the stores have some craft items, but most go to a few stores. I just got a $5 bag of fabric from Goodwill yesterday. It included half of a jelly roll, 6 coordinated half yard cuts, as well as lots of FQ to 2 yard pieces and some orphan blocks. Another time they had bags of quilt shop quality fabrics in 1/2 to 1 yard cuts at $10 a bag. Each bag probably had 25-30 yards in it. But there are only 2 stores that I consistently find good fabric in.
I have also made several quilts from cheap poly/cotton sheets. A $5 twin sheet has a lot of fabric in it. For $15 you could get 2 of one color and one of another and make her an Irish Chain, which you could mostly SITD with FMQ in the open areas.

sassysews2

Have you tried shopgoodwill.com?? This website has lots of scraps for quilting & piece goods very cheap, also lots of sewing machines & misc sewing notions. Good luck, also, try fmq with two layers of muslin, with an old blanket for batting. Makes a good practice quilt. Change colors of thread & you can see how you improve over time.